We Were Children
by shadowsinfire
Summary: We were children... What's changed since then? Chapter 4: Prisoners in Paradise. Rangiku remembers Gin. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS. Sorry.
1. Secret of the Moon

Secret of the Moon  
Yoruichi on Byakuya  
Different or the same, it doesn't really matter with Byakuya.  
Set around chapter 119 (Secret of the Moon)  
Short one.

When we were young, I was jealous of you. All of being a noble came easily to you: the politely interested face, the noble bearing, the authority. I didn't have that. I would fight for it, for the praise you received. Or at least, I did at first.

I don't know when I realised how ridiculous it all was. Although you had what we were both supposed to, I managed fine without it. Maybe better than you. While I had to fight to achieve that mask, you had to fight for other things. I was the one with friends, who could open up. You were the noble – cold, aloof, and friendless. I gained trust and loyalty out of love. You gained loyalty out of duty. And while your subordinates could trust you to watch their back in battle, your misguided sense of justice led you to try to execute you own sister.

Is it a surprise that we ended up so different?

Yes, when I was young I envied you. No longer. What started as a habit - a skill you were praised for - is now so ingrained it takes a conscious effort to drop the façade.

How many people know you, Byakuya-kun? Sometimes I wonder if there's anything left under that mask of the kid you were.

And all the times we played tag, and you never caught me. It was the one thing I excelled at, the one thing our elders praised me for.

All of that was years ago. These days the only tag we engage in is deadly serious, and I know you would kill me if you could. Not because you want to, but because of your orders.

Duty. That was another thing we disagreed on. You saw it as responsibility - to your superiors. I saw it as that, but more importantly as a responsibility to others - my subordinates, my friends, my family, they all came first, before my orders.

We've grown so apart through the years, and our chosen paths will not bring us back to the friendly rivalry we shared as children. We are too different. Maybe we could mend this rift - maybe. But it would take more effort than either of us would be willing to put into it. And by the time you realise you're wrong and turn around, start following your heart and not your sense of duty, I will have too much of a head start. I'm not planning on turning around, or stopping and waiting. I'm too far away.

We used to play tag, and you never could catch me. That hasn't changed.

You can't catch me now.

-----

I don't really think Yoruichi is the sort of person who would spend a long time angsting, so she doesn't.

I am planning for there to be about eight to ten chapters in this.

I'm going to try to post one a week, but that may be difficult.

The character selection will be the characters in each chapter, as I post it. That may or may not make sense to you.


	2. End of the Halcyon Days

End of the Halcyon Days

Tatsuki on Ichigo

Ichigo is different, but he hasn't changed, only grown up.

Set soon after chapter 239 (WINGED EAGLES), which I always think is named wrong.

I wondered if I was going mad at first. When you asked me if I could see that skull thing. When I saw you dressed up in black, running away from school, reaching for the giant sword slung across your back. Then I remembered I was seeing those things more often, and that other man, Afro-san, who also wore the black outfit. Then I saw you talking to that transfer student - Hirako-san, and heard some of what you said and wondered if I was getting paranoid. Suddenly everyone seemed to know more than me, and I was left in the dark.

And then those two men in the white outfits with holes in their bodies came, and they sucked out the souls of my friends, and after that was when I realised you'd been trying to protect me.

I started worrying about you, because even though we haven't been as close as we used to be in ages, I still think of you as my friend. I would worry about nearly anyone in your situation.

But then Orihime disappeared. And you didn't tell me anything. Even if I had only known half of what I know, that would've infuriated me. As it was...

Did you really think you couldn't trust me? Or were you just trying to protect me? Again?

You should know by now, Ichigo. If I don't want to be protected, I don't let myself be protected. If I want to find something out, I find it out. Eventually.

But even I didn't expect this answer.

Why didn't you trust me? Weren't we friends? Didn't I deserve to know the truth? I told you way back: you shouldn't need to hold anything back from me. We were friends. I hope we still are. But I won't let you protect me. Not unless you'll let me protect you too.

Even so.

You may not be as stupid as you act, but I'm not as tough as I act either. You know that. And you still try to push me away, even knowing that that will hurt me far more than just telling me the truth. Or did you forget that? I guess I can't really blame you, having this much on your mind.

You are different, you know. You're not the crybaby I knocked on his ass eleven years ago. You aren't the laughing mamma's boy, either: that part of you died with Masaki-san, all those years ago, on the banks of the river. You aren't the child, sulking in the corner because he got beaten again. Now, you're this scowling teenager, with ridiculous power, so much that you've infected all of your friends. It's your fault that we have these powers, that we don't want your protection.

None of my business, huh? Like hell the end of the world as we know it isn't my business. We are involved in this. We have been from the start. From before we were born, if that's how long this 'Aizen Sousuke' guy has been planning this. If there's anything I can do to turn the tables, I will. You can't change that. I won't let you.

You are still the same, no matter how much you've changed. You still have that hero complex, like you want to save the world and everyone in it. You still lose heart after every little setback. You are still determined to follow through what you started. I guess you haven't really changed at all, just grown up. And that isn't such a bad thing.

Probably.

-----


	3. You Don't Hear My Name Anymore

You Don't Hear My Name Anymore  
Gin on Rangiku  
He wishes they hadn't grown up.

Set between chapter 178 (No-one Stand On The Sky) and 213 (trifle), because he doesn't appear for ages. This one kinda freaks me out. I wrote it late at night (the same as maybe three quarters of all of my stuff (I wonder why?)), then typed it up and posted it today. Yeah.

I wanted to forget you.

Still do.

But you see, the thing is, if I did there'd be nothing left that's beautiful.

I wonder sometimes, why I still care about beauty, goodness. Why I still love you. Why should I?

And I don't, but then again, I do.

It's senseless. When you play a game with lives as the pieces the last thing you want to do is start caring about the one piece that could lose you not only the game, but your life. But I still said sorry.

Sorry for what?

I really don't know.

I remember a time when I would have apologised, and meant it, and known why. But that was long ago.

And would I still remember, if I didn't remember you? You remind me of those things, even when I'd rather forget them.

Yesterday I climbed to the roof of the palace of the night, up, up, and up, seven hundred steps in the ascent. And from the white halls to the dark sky, there was no colour, and even at the top, above the clouds, even there I could not see the sun.

I had thought that if I could, maybe I would see you again.

Maybe I'm going crazy.

And then last night I dreamed of you, with the light of sunset on your hair, and you were laughing, and I when I woke my face was wet with tears.

I had forgotten I could cry.

Maybe I should have taken his advice, destroyed everything that reminded me of what I once was.

But to do so would mean destroying you, and you are the one thing I won't destroy, can't destroy, because to do so would destroy me.

So stuck in this impasse I wander through the day, keeping a smile on my face, a mask among thousands of other masks.

Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't saved you that day, had gone out in the other direction. I never would have learned that you existed. And yet I can't be sorry for it, even if it ends up killing me. Because I know that if any shinigami kills me, it will be you. You or your child captain. After all, you are the only ones with enough reason to.

-----


	4. Prisoners in Paradise

Prisoners in Paradise

Rangiku on Gin

Gin has changed. He's different from what she remembers, from the child that saved her.

Set around chapter 180 (Something In The Aftermath)

Notes: This is the first of these I wrote, so it doesn't quite fit in with the rest, but I'm too lazy to edit it.

'Goodbye, Rangiku,' you said. 'Sorry.'

Do you honestly think you can just – apologise? 'Sorry' won't fix anything. Nothing will fix this.

You've changed, Gin. You're different from how I remember you, different from the child who saved me. But I can hardly trust those memories now. I'm not sure how much was real and how much was hero worship.

I should hate you. In a way I do. But I cannot find it in me to loathe you, the way I loathe Aizen and Tousen, Aizen for what he chose to do and Tousen because of what he believes.

There is no way this is justice.

What do you want? I don't know, never did, and most likely never will. Isn't it sad? I thought I was your friend, but I never really knew you.

For that matter, what do I want? I don't know, but I think that what I really want is to turn back time, to try again, to see if I could have changed the way things turned out.

When did this start? Where did you go, when you left all those times? Now you've left again, and this time I know where you went.

I wish I didn't.

'It's a little disappointing…'

You bet it is.

What was behind that smile of yours? They tell me you stopped smiling when I grabbed you. Would it have been different if it was someone else? Why do you show one face to the world and another to me?

Sometimes I wonder if I should have killed you when I had the chance.

Would I have killed you if I'd known how you would betray me?

When we were children we talked about our fears. You told me the one thing you were afraid of was death. I asked why. After all, we'd already died once. You told me, 'we fear the dark cos we don't know what's in it. We can't see anything. That's why I'm afraid of death. Cos we don't know what happens.'

I said 'but we do know - if we die in the real world, we come here. If we die here, we go back.'

'But we don't know. When - if - we go back, we don't remember. Do you know that's true? Do you know someone who remembers?'

I asked you about the blind man we'd seen the day before. You said that you didn't know how he could stand that existence. 'I'd go mad after a day.'

Why did you leave? Was it fear? Curiousity? Some combination of the two? Why have you changed so much?

And now there's just one thing left I want to ask.

Am I able to kill you now?

-----


End file.
